


The Florist

by flashindie



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deaf Character, M/M, Puppy Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:02:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Ryan is a florist and Brendon is horribly in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Florist

The Florist.

“So,” Brendon says, and he runs a hand across the desk in front of him, fingers the groves that bruise the wood, scar it, leave it looking like some battered veteran from Vietnam. “So, hi.”

Ryan though, that boy behind the counter, the one with the face too pretty for any boy, he doesn’t even look up. He just sighs, stares at the countertop with eyes too large, too deep, too quiet. He just taps at the sign behind him. 

How may I serve you?

Brendon sighs, darts fingers through his hair, and shoots Ryan one last, fleeting glance. “Carnations,” he says, puffs out his cheeks and dishes out his wallet.

Ryan, he nods, fumbles with the paper pad in his hand and for a few seconds, that’s the only sound, the pen that runs races across the paper. But then he sighs again, and his sneakers, they squeak across the floor as he goes to get the flowers.

*

It doesn’t really start anywhere, but if Brendon had to choose a beginning, he’d tell people it was on his brother’s second wedding anniversary.

On the day it rained cats and dogs and horses. 

Pitter-patter pitter-patter, and Brendon, his clothes are soaked through, he’s drowning in the street, but Paul, Paul will be right pissed if he misses it, if he doesn’t go.

The florist on Walton Avenue is his first stop, and he falls inside the door, collapses onto the cold tiles that pattern the ground, the floor. They don’t match, and it’s all he can see.

Brendon groans, rubs his head with bruising fingertips. “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck.”

There’s a giggle somewhere in the space above him, and he looks up in time to see a pretty boy with too much soil on his clothes, beneath his nails, to really be hygienic. The boy is shuffling closer, and with every movement, Brendon gets a nose full of marigold and tiger lily. 

“A hand’d be good right about now,” Brendon says though, and he sits up properly, rubs some of the water off his knees and his thighs.

The boy, he laughs again, smiles so wide that it stretches, tugs around the shells of his ears. He pushes a hand off his hip, hovers it just above Brendon’s eye-level, and Brendon, he takes it, but probably pulls himself up.

“Thanks,” he says, and the boy, he’s still smiling, his eyes are still crinkled, and Brendon can’t say he understands why his heart flutters in his throat, hums like a new car, whistles like a Bell Bird.

“Thanks,” he says again, and the boy squints a little, looks straight into Brendon’s eyes, and Brendon’s breath gets caught around his heart. “Thanks.”

“Ryan,” a voice calls from somewhere behind them. “Ryan.” It’s another boy, another young guy, and he grasps the first boy, Ryan, by the shoulder. “Ryan, go help Greta out back.”

Ryan nods, but he’s all smiles still, his fingers loosen on Brendon’s hand, and he waves a little. 

Goodbye. 

Only Brendon, he chooses to interpret it as see you later.

“Hey, are you all right?”

And it’s the other boy, the other boy with his hand on his hip, and his apron covered in grass stains. 

“Fine, good, actually, great,” Brendon says, and he runs a hand through his hair, it catches on the melted gel, liquid wax, and Brendon grimaces too hard. “I’ve been better.”

“I could guess that,” the boy says, and casts him a wry smile, “I’m Spencer, how can I help you?”

“Oh, uh, I need a bouquet.”

“I assumed,” Spencer states dryly. “Specifically?”

“Surprise me.”

*

“Fuck, I hate my job,” Brendon mumbles, and tries not to scratch at where the rim of the rubber glove grazes the skin on his wrist. “Fuck.”

Brendon, he works in a tropical smoothie hut, and even the back room, the one with no customers, it’s littered with fake palm trees and sunshine-yellow wallpaper. He figures he should start wearing sunglasses to work, what with the way the fluorescent light bulb reflects off the metallic sinks and drawers and sterilized countertops. 

“Shut up, Brendon,” Hayley says, but she lets loose a wayward grin from where she hides behind the trays of fruit. “Everyone knows you love us really.” 

“I’m not denying that, Hayls, what I’m saying is that I hate this job. This stupid, crappy job of tending to obese people with fruit fetishes.”

Hayley, she laughs aloud at that and wanders over to him, leans her head on his shoulder. “You are such a dick.”

Brendon grumbles out an inaudible reply and leans his head over hers. “My life sucks so bad.”

“It could be worse.”

“Name one way in which it could be worse.” And he knows it’s stupid and it’s petty and there are probably a million dying kids in Africa who would very happily trade places, but, well, Brendon really hates his job.

Hayley rolls her eyes though, chuckles and runs a hand over the watermelon in front of her. “You could be on the tills.”

Maybe it’s agreed amongst everyone who works for minimum wage that customer service should be on the psychiatrist’s pamphlets of why people commit suicide. 

“Brendon,” Rosie calls from the doorway. Rosie, she’s the big shift manager, she knows everyone, and maybe, maybe she’s nice, but she’s not nice to them. “Brendon, I need you to take over out front!”

Brendon lifts his head just enough to glare venomously at the back of Hayley’s red-headed skull. “You jinxed me, bitch.”

“Have fun,” she says, grabs the knife from the strainer to slaughter the watermelon. “And when you get back I shall be ready with a list of all the ways in which your life could be worse.”

“I hate you,” he says, but he rips off his gloves and storms out of what the employees affectionately call the ‘doors of hell’.

Behind him, Hayley, she calls out, “You love me!”

The front of the store is surprisingly empty for a Saturday morning. The fan rickets overhead, a couple in the back corner share a straw, a group of girls in the middle gossip about Heath Ledger and Brokeback Mountain. 

Only, the glass sides of the counter - the ones that display fruit and cakes and drinks - well, there’s a boy pressed up against it. 

Not a whole boy, just hands and arms and a face. 

Brendon quirks a brow and props himself over the counter. “Excuse me?”

The boy, he looks up too quickly, smiles too wide and he waves.

It’s the guy, the Ryan from the florist two days ago. “Hi,” Brendon says, and maybe he smiles back a bit, maybe he waves too. 

Ryan stands up suddenly, and Brendon falls back on his heels. “Hey, what would you like?”

The boy, though, Ryan, he doesn’t say anything, he just, he pulls a menu from the countertop, reads, points at a passion fruit and apple smoothie. 

“That one?”

Ryan doesn’t say anything, doesn’t acknowledge Brendon’s there at all really, and just pulls out $4.85 from his ugly, brown wallet.

*

Brendon really hates it when shops have bells above their doors, so he tries not to grimace when he slides into the florist the next day, resists the urge to tell someone to take it down.

Ryan’s there, Ryan’s there in the corner of the tiny store, and he’s picked up one of the generic vases, one of the one’s filled with Jacaranda blossoms. 

“Hi,” Brendon says, and Ryan, the look he shoots back is almost inquisitive, almost confused.

“Uh, how are you?” Brendon asks, and he shakes his fingers a little, rolls back on his heels.

Ryan sighs, runs fingers through his hair, and maybe he shrugs, but with the way he moves, it’s kinda hard to tell. He picks himself up and wanders back behind the counter, reaches over and taps at the sign.

How may I serve you?

“Oh, well, daisies…or something, to be honest I don’t know. Can you like, recommend any?”

A woman sneaks out from behind the counter, out of nowhere, out of the labyrinth. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess.”

“Ryan, go help Greta out back.”

Somewhere in the distance, Spencer rolls his eyes. 

*

“So, there’s this guy,” Brendon starts, and Mia opposite him, she laughs aloud. 

“Fuck, Brendon,” she says, and piles ice-cream into her mouth. 

“It’s not a big deal or anything, it’s just, he seems, I dunno, nice.”

“Is he hot?” she asks, and Mia’s skin is milky white to match the ice-cream, her hair is the chocolate flake they put in at the stands. Her pants are the corrugated tan cone. Brendon wonders if he could eat her. 

Then again, it’d be kinda gross seeing as she’s his sister. 

“Define hot.”

“So, not?” Mia says, mumbles, chokes out. It’s kinda hard to tell, when she has a mouthful of food.

“No, he is. I mean, he’s cute and stuff, pretty.”

Mia quirks a brow, rubs her mouth off on her sleeve. “Pretty?” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she says, but she’s still grinning like a lunatic. “Okay.”

“But, he like, he just doesn’t talk, like ever. I mean, I’m sure he can, he just…chooses not to? I dunno.”

“Maybe he thinks you’re an idiot,” Mia states, and she’s smiling still, as she leans backward onto the floor. She’s feeling too pregnant today, and even if she doesn’t admit it, she’s a little scared. She’s not ready to play house all on her own yet.

Brendon though, he just stares at her blatantly, his forehead crinkles and the corners of his lips droop dramatically. “Mia.”

She glances over, before chuckling at Brendon’s face. She reaches over to slap his leg. “Fuck, Bren, I’m kidding.”

“You better be,” Brendon says, and he lies down next to her, stretches out an arm to touch her belly. 

“If he can’t see how wonderful you are, then fuck him.” Mia states resolutely, and she tries to roll over, struggles with her waist, so instead just wraps her own arm around Brendon’s.

“This seems marginally familiar,” Brendon says, and he casts her a wry smile. “You regurgitating advice I gave you?”

“Yeah,” Mia says, but she, she’s a strong set of four-walls that were built on these shaky, these wobbly foundations. So essentially, she tells herself, essentially her strong walls are useless if all they’re gonna do is cave in. “Sorry.”

“Michael’s an idiot,” Brendon says, “and he’s a loser. You and baby are better off without him.”

“Yeah,” Mia says, but she doesn’t quite believe it.

*

So maybe the florist is a really tiny store. Maybe it’s this tiny building that shrinks with every bundle of flowers that grow around the walls like jungle vines.

Maybe, now that Brendon’s here with just the one intention, it seems even smaller. 

“So,” Brendon says, and Ryan’s in the front, watering the pansies and wow, the irony in that scenario. “So,” Brendon tries again, adamantly attempting to ignore his exploding heart. “So…”

Ryan’s staring at him now, like he’s just noticed he came in. Ryan, he waves.

“So, hi,” Brendon says, and how sad is it that it took him that long to say that?

Ryan squints, smiles, wrings the handle of the can around in his fingers, those desperately long things.

“So, well, I’m Brendon, and I don’t think I ever introduced myself.” He sticks out a hand, and fuck, he feels like an idiot. Feels ridiculous here, with this boy he hardly knows. “I’ve been coming in here for the last three and a half weeks, you might have noticed me or, y’know, maybe you haven’t…”

Ryan’s all wariness as he eyes off the hand, but he reaches a wet palm out to meet it after much trepidation, and wow, awkward.

“So, okay, so the point is, uh, for lack of a better phrase,” Brendon says, and he’s starting to feel like a twelve-year-old with a crush. “I like you, and well, maybe we could go out sometime.”

The other boy, Ryan, he’s still not saying anything, and Brendon isn’t all that surprised, but maybe he’s disappointed, maybe he wants some sort of reaction, coz this is starting to feel too much like rejection. 

“Just, you know, maybe, I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna force you or anything.” And he lets loose a nervous chuckle, one that vibrates around the pits of his stomach. “It could be fun…”

Ryan, his forehead is creasing, and his lips droop uncomfortably, he starts to wander off before Brendon can say anything else. Ryan, he’s walking behind the desk, and when Brendon looks over he blushes too hard, the tips of his ears and the base of his neck an unpleasant colour of blood-red. 

Ryan, he looks over, and his eyes might be watering a bit, but instead, he just turns around and taps, taps at that fucking sign.

How may I serve you?

“Fuck,” Brendon says, and something has crept its way up his shins, his thighs, crawled through his navel, and is currently exploding, rupturing in his stomach. The smoke billows through his throat, out his ears, out his mouth. “Fuck you,” he says. “I ask one thing, you could at least fucking reply-“

Ryan’s eyes are suddenly made of glass, they reflect the light, waver, bend, and Brendon, he’s about ready to implode, take out Ryan and this entire fucking store, but…but he’s grabbed from behind, thrust out the closed door, and that fucking bell, it rings in his ears.

Suddenly, suddenly he’s out the front of the florist, and Spencer’s in front of him, homicide in his non-glass eyes. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, and his voice, it’s too calm, but not calm enough to make Brendon shut up. 

“I practically throw myself at him, and he just, he doesn’t answer, he says fuck all, I mean, I just asked him out and-“

“Brendon,” Spencer interrupts, sighs, his eyes dart around the street, and maybe he shouldn’t be saying this. “Brendon, Ryan was in an accident when he was a baby.”

“And then he - What?”

“Brendon,” Spencer says, and he runs a fisted hand over his forehead, “Brendon, Ryan’s deaf.”

“You mean he hasn’t actually…”

“Heard any of what you’ve said? No.” 

“But he knew the flowers-” Brendon says, and he’s grasping at straws, pulling at the threads of some broken argument. 

“He’s worked here for the last four years,” Spencer states, rubs at the striped fabric of his ugly apron. “He’s getting all right at lip-reading the names of common household plants.”

“Oh,” Brendon says. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’.” And Spencer, he sighs again, stares at the pavement. “Just, leave him alone, stop, stop pursuing him, he can’t…you can’t, Brendon. He needs someone who will get it, you…too much of you is what you say.”

* [End part 1/3]

“So, then,” Jon starts, and his gestures are getting away from him, he’s all big, swinging arms tonight, all raised, exasperated voice. “Then Cassie tells me that if I don’t go to the fucking thing with her, she will seriously reconsider my commitment to our relationship. I mean, what the fuck? Just coz I don’t want to go to some fucking charity ball!”

“That’s pretty crap,” Brendon says, but he’s finding it difficult to get too involved tonight, he’s too emotionally drained from over-thinking things, from over-thinking Ryan.

“What’s up with you?” Jon asks, and his brow furrows, and his palm finds its way to his forehead. “Usually I can’t shut you up at this point.” 

“Ah,” Brendon says, and he shrugs, “work’s kinda shit at the moment.”

“The smoothie hut? Dude, you should quit.”

Brendon, he quirks a brow, looks at Jon with good humour. “And what would I use to pay rent, oh wise one?”

“I dunno, sue Rosie for rape or something, get her to pay damages and live the rest of your years on that.”

“Your plan, Jon Walker, it’s unflawed.”

Jon shrugs, but he’s smiling. “I could probably get you a job at the record store.”

“Cassie got you that job,” Brendon says, and he starts walking along the path. Jon, he doesn’t run to catch up.

“Yeah, but they like me!”

“No, they like Cassie,” Brendon calls back, and he can almost see Jon laughing in the worlds behind him.

The park here, it’s nice really, a nice place to be, to think, to walk. 

When Brendon was very small, he and his brothers and sisters, they’d run races down the maze of dusty pathways, seek out the prize of the playground, and even now, even now, Brendon’s feet switch onto autopilot, and he’s at the slide, the monkey bars, the seesaw, before he can stop himself.

It’s empty, minus the little girl and her mother, minus that boy, the one on the swing.

Ah.

Ryan, he doesn’t hear Brendon’s feet plow through the leaf-litter, through the tiny mock-bark flooring. He only sees him when Brendon’s shadow kills the light and warmth on his skin.

“Isn’t it dangerous for you to be out on your own?”

Ryan stares up through his hair, and Brendon, maybe it steals his breath a little.

“You really can’t hear me, can you? It’s not just…it’s not just Spencer saying it to get me to leave you alone.”

Ryan’s pupils dart around his iris, trying to escape, his long, spidery fingers gesture to his ears, and he shrugs, smiles.

Brendon sits on the swing next to him. “I have enough trouble trying to understand people as it is, this kinda throws me on a loop.”

Ryan’s eyes are big and they’re staring long and hard; Brendon can see his useless ears straining.

“I’m sorry,” Brendon says, “but for what it’s worth, I still like you.”

* 

The problem with the florist, Brendon thinks, is not so much the bell as it is the windows. Coz, you know, the windows, they’re too big and too bold, and really are only there for show. To imply the findings of the great indoors. 

Spencer says, he says that they overgrow some of the flowers so they look big and pretty to everyone walking passed. They’re the flower, literally, and they’re trying to get some pretty young thing in a stripy vest to pop by and spread the word, the pollen.

Brendon, he kinda thinks it’s stupid.

He goes in the next Wednesday though, and he’s still wearing the ugly t-shirt from the smoothie hut, the black slacks and the name badge.

And Ryan, he…well, he’s not there. Spencer is though, Spencer with the grass-stained apron and the smile that would put even the most devoted dental model to shame.

“Where is he?”

Spencer sighs, and he’s pruning a set of overgrown magnolia bushes, clipping twigs and leaves and flower buds. He sighs again, inhales so hard that Brendon’s lungs ache in sympathy. “When you break his heart, Brendon,” he starts, and he’s turned around now, is staring Brendon in the eye, brandishing plant-clippers like you would not believe, “watch your back, coz I’ll be there. Probably with a knife or a gun or some weapon of mass destruction.”

“I think those clippers are more threatening,” Brendon says, and he really wishes he was kidding.

“Then I’ll bring these along too,” Spencer replies, and he’s turned around, has gone back to pruning poor Magnolia. 

“Was that your blessing, Mr. Spencer?” Brendon tries, because it really sorta sounds like it. “Coz it means a lot to me, really.”

“Fuck off.”

“Whe-”

“He’s out back. He’s fixing an order for someone, so if he looks busy, leave him alone.”

And Brendon, he’s never actually been behind the counter before, so he tries his best to creep, to keep his hands to himself. 

Ryan, he’s hard to see straight away, lost in a hurricane of green and pastel-yellow plastic-paper. There’s endless gold ribbon that falls off the end of the table, rolls onto the floor, straight and narrow, a roman road. His fingers, those long, spidery things, they’re clutching a million stems, lilies and posies and magnolias. 

Ryan, he’s…he’s engrossed, his eyes don’t stray, and Brendon, he calls out a little, but Ryan’s too focused, and his fingers are too busy, and, well, he’s deaf. 

So Brendon, he just, he sits, and he watches and maybe, maybe he can’t help the smile that crawls across his face. 

He’s never sat still for so long.

*

“Will you talk for me?”

Ryan stares at him, eyes squinting, face screwed up in concentration.

“I know deaf people can talk, coz they have weird accents. I won’t think yours is weird though, I’ll probably like it,” Brendon says, and his bangs really are getting too long, he fingers them a bit, before brushing them off his face.

Ryan, he just shrugs though.

“I still like you,” Brendon says, and it’s easier to say it now. Now that Ryan can’t hear. 

It isn’t a surprise, the way Ryan doesn’t reply, but he finishes wrapping the petunias and piles them into Brendon’s ready arms. 

“Thanks,” Brendon sighs, inhales till his heart aches in his chest. “Thanks,” he says, and he leaves. But, he’ll discover hours and hours later, there’s a card on it that he didn’t ask for.

I’m deaf, not blind and not mute. I think you forget that sometimes.

*

“You left me a note,” Brendon accuses sometime the next day. “You, Ryan…Ryan I-still-don’t-know-your-last-name left me a note.”

Ryan shrugs, and he’s all innocence, with the wide eyes and the delicate face, but his smile, the twitch of his lips gives him away.

“You left me a note, and you aren’t blind and you aren’t mute, so I want you to talk for me.”

Somewhere deep in the backdrop of the jungle, Spencer laughs aloud. 

*

So Brendon, the way he figures, is that if Ryan can write notes then so can he. Of course, the fact that he is not a twelve-year-old girl is seriously put under question as a result.

“Three violets,” Brendon says, and Ryan nods a little, scribbles on a pad of paper and wanders out the back. 

He comes back in a matter of minutes, a bouquet of three in his dainty arms. He looks like a grown flower girl, a bridesmaid, a maid of honour, a bride.

The paper he hands over says $8.98, and the money that Brendon gives back has a note on top.

Come out with me tonight? Check yes or no.

*

“Fuck,” Brendon says, “fuck.”

Mia’s lost amongst the sofa cushions, and maybe (there are no maybes about it) she’s laughing a little.

“Fuck,” Brendon says, and his fingers run races through his hair, he straightens his button up shirt, and maybe he kinda wonders why the hell he’s wearing a fucking blouse…thing.

“You’re too cute,” Mia says, and she’s on the playstation, Mario Racecarts too tempting for her fragile resistance. 

“No,” Brendon says, and he collapses onto the sofa beside her, brushes at his bangs and yeah, he really does need a haircut. “I am a nervous wreck, I am a car crash waiting to happen. He’s gonna get in, and then I’ll say the wrong thing, and I’ll completely fuck everything up, coz-”

“Brendon,” Mia starts, and her eyes are glued to the screen, she’s Mario today, she’s always Mario. “Brendon, provided you haven’t been shamelessly lying to me, this kid’s fucking deaf. Makes sense, no one who values their ears would date you.”

“Shut up,” he says, and he picks up the second handset. “I have a beautiful voice.”

Mia laughs a bit again, ruffles his hair with a wayward hand. “You have a beautiful everything, Bren.”

“Damn straight I do,” he says, and it’s strange, them living here together. She was never the sibling he figured he’d shack up with. “And, Mia…”

“Yeah?” she asks, and she’s back to playing the game, turning corners too hard.

“Thanks for everything tonight, y’know, cooking dinner and shit.”

The game’s on pause, and Mia, she’s just smiling. 

“I hate you a lot,” she says, and she rolls her eyes to the ceiling, to the light bulb that flickers above their heads, “but that doesn’t mean I stop loving you.”

“Yeah,” Brendon says, “ditto.”

* (End part 2/3)

Ryan, he’s in a black button-up shirt and pinstriped trousers. He’s standing in the doorway to the apartment and he’s awkward and tall and uncomfortable in his skin, in his clothes, and just, maybe he’s out of his depth.

“Hi,” Brendon says, “hi.” And he’s breathing in too quickly, his eyelids quiver and that space between his shoulder blades is releasing sweat by the pounds. 

You could sell that shit, run cars on it.

Ryan waves a little, and it’s still awkward, and Brendon doesn’t want him to feel like he shouldn’t be here. 

“So,” Brendon says, and he pulls Ryan through the entrance, slams the door behind him. “So, my sister totally made us casserole and if it sucks, I’ve got money for pizza.”

Ryan doesn’t hear, isn’t even looking at Brendon, he’s scouring the walls, fingering the corners of the picture frames. 

“My sister, Mia, she has one of her pregnancy classes tonight, and usually, y’know, I go with her, coz the baby’s dad is like, the biggest dick ever, but I’m staying here with you tonight, well, coz I asked you and stuff.”

There’s a smile that tugs at the corner of Ryan’s lips, but he gestures to his ears again, I can’t hear you, and Brendon, he can understand that much. 

“Right,” he says, and he grasps Ryan’s fingers in his own, tugs him into the kitchen. “Uh, casserole. Hope you’re not like, vegetarian, coz that would kinda suck.”

*

Dinner’s over too quickly, and it’s just, all it is is Brendon talkingtalkingtalking and Ryan, well, he’s not listening, but he pretends to, and Brendon appreciates the sentiment. 

They sorta migrate into the living room, and Brendon, he went to the video store that morning, got out as many films with subtitles as he could. Most of them are foreign.

He forgets that most DVD’s have it for the hearing impaired now anyway.

But Ryan, maybe he appreciates the sentiment too. He pulls out that Jackie Chan flick, that New Police Story.

The movie, it builds up and builds up, and maybe Brendon is too used to watching movies with pregnant women, coz Mia has to piss every eight and a half minutes, so he doesn’t notice that Ryan’s gone until he gets back.

Gets back when they’re all on top of the building, when the abusive dad of the attractive kid is ready to get all agro. When the kid, that good looking Asian criminal, he basically commits suicide. Kinda.

Ryan though, he taps him on the shoulder, and he’s holding Brendon’s acoustic guitar, the one his parents bought him for his thirteenth birthday.

Lost in the backdrop, Jackie Chan is racing down the outside wall of a vertical building.

“Uh,” Brendon says, “yeah, I used to play. Don’t have time much anymore, y’know with work and stuff.” With all my free time spent up on you, only, he doesn’t say that.

Jackie Chan, he’s clutching the rope in adamantly strong fingers to save the other attractive guy, the young one in the jacket. 

Ryan’s nodding, and his hair bounces as he does it. He’s smiling, just that tiny bit, and well, what the hell?

Brendon grasps the guitar in his hands, tunes it a little and, well, he tries to remember Good Riddance. 

Ah.

Jackie Chan and the young, good looking guy, they’ve fallen onto the air mattress set up by the firemen. The villagers rejoice. 

So, without further adieu, without announcement or applause, Brendon starts to strum out the chords, and Ryan, Ryan doesn’t take his eyes off of Brendon’s fingers.

He’s playing, and, well, he can’t take his eyes off Ryan, Ryan and his huge eyes and his parted lips and the way that even now, even now a million miles away from the florist, he still smells like marigolds and tiger lilies. 

Ryan takes Brendon’s fingers away from the guitar string, tries to interlace them with his own, but just ends up playing with them, touching the roughened pads.

“I wish,” Ryan starts, and he’s slow, he over-pronounces syllables and letters. “I wish that I…” He points to himself with his other hand, but, he doesn’t look at Brendon, he can’t make eye contact. “…could hear you.”

To be fair, he takes seconds on each word; he’s thinking it out, and he’s trying as hard as he can to make the same mouth shapes that they do on television. To be fair, he mispronounces the word ‘could’. But, but this is Ryan, and this is the little deaf boy who sits behind the counter of the florist that Brendon has spent more money in this year than HMV, and that’s just plain fucked up.

“I wish you could hear me too,” Brendon says, but Ryan doesn’t hear it, doesn’t see it, he’s not making eye contact, he’s staring too hard at the floor. 

“I think I could be in love with you,” Brendon says, and his voice shakes and quivers and maybe that would be embarrassing if Ryan had heard a word he’d said. 

*

“So,” Brendon says, and it’s Friday morning. Friday means one day until the weekend, three days till his next paycheck. “So,” he says, and he’s decked out in his work gear, he has to be back at the smoothie hut in half an hour. “So I’m being ironic.”

He’s not really sure what else to say, so he opts to go with, “I stole them out of my neighbour’s yard.” And then he hands them over, hands over a bunch of daisies and buttercups and dandelion leaves, and, well, everyone can still see the roots on one of them where Brendon pulled too hard.

Ryan, he doesn’t hear, but he gets it, and he laughs.

*

“You know, when I get enough money to leave the apartment, I am totally going to buy a mansion for us to live in. And then,” Brendon says, and he’s pushing Ryan on the swing, Ryan’s too quiet, “and then, we can get married. I mean, I know I’ve only known you for like, two months, but I think we could last forever.”

Brendon, he breathes in too quickly, but the exhale, he draws it out, lets the air whistle through his teeth. “I want this to last forever.”

Ryan twists in the seat, and for a second, an instant, Brendon worries that he heard it. 

“Reservation?” Ryan says, and his fingers twitch a little, his eyes widen, and he’s not smiling. Not right now.

“Right,” Brendon says, “don’t want to miss it, Pizza Hut is a sort-after establishment.”

“Brendon,” Ryan starts, and his forehead is crinkled, and his eyebrows are lopsided. Brendon, he notices these things too much. “Brendon,” Ryan says again, and he reaches out a hand to tug at the other boy’s, to hold on to it too tight.

“I can’t hear you,” he says, and the words, they slur together a bit, it’s what happens when he’s not careful enough to over-pronounce them.

“I know,” Brendon laughs. “I mean, well, I know.”

Ryan, he’s trying to lip-read, Brendon can always tell because Ryan’s eyes strain, he tries to mouth the letters in response, and he can never quite figure any of it out. He’s as good at deciphering mouths as Brendon is at Morse code.

Ryan gives up, and it’s obvious from the way he slouches, the way his shoulders hunch and his body resigns. 

“I can’t hear you,” Ryan says, “I am scared that you take advantage of that.”

Brendon, he can’t think of anything to say, but Ryan is looking at him with expectant eyes and maybe, maybe he can’t help but kiss him.

Presses his lips against Ryan’s too hard and too tight and too forward. When Ryan doesn’t kiss back, Brendon figures it was maybe a bad idea.

“No,” Ryan says, and he shakes his head, fingers the chain of the swing.

“Yeah, the reservation,” Brendon says, after too many seconds go by without another move. “Pizza Hut waits for no one, y’know.”

*

Just for the record, two nights later Mia gives birth. 

She cries and she screams, and so does Brendon, but in the end she has a little girl.

She calls her Marigold Lily Urie, and Brendon’s not sure if she’s taking the piss.

*  
The florist is dark tomorrow evening, and maybe it’s closed to anyone who isn’t Brendon.

“Ryan can sign right?” he asks, and he’s trying out casual indifference today, toying with the stems of a dozen daffodils. 

“Uh,” Spencer says, quirks a brow. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t he be able to sign?”

“Well, I figure that some deaf people can’t sign…”

“Brendon,” Spencer starts, and he’s trimming the leaves of a rather over-zealous looking rose bush. “How many deaf people do you know that can’t sign?”

And well, to be fair Ryan’s the first deaf person he’s met ever. “How many deaf people do you know in general?”

“Three,” Spencer says, and his smile is a mouthful of smug looking teeth. He glances over at Brendon. “They can all sign.”

“Smartarse.”

“Yeah,” Spencer replies, and even though he’s still grinning, even though he’s still pretty goddamn pleased with having the upper hand, his eyes, they’re worried. “Why?”

“Oh, uh, well, Ryan, he…” Brendon starts, and he scratches at the tuft of hair at the back of his neck, runs a handful of nails over the back of his scalp. He takes a deep breath, and his left foot starts to tap on the floor, “…he’s deaf, Spencer.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” he says, rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“Maybe I’m in this for the long run.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything, just keeps trimming at newborn leaves and baby branches. 

“Well, y’know, I’d like to be. I dunno, it’s probably not realistic, but, it’s just-“

“He talks about you all the time,” Spencer says. “He can’t pronounce your name.”

“Right,” Brendon says, and he can feel his brain scrape across the edges of his skull, it’s bloated and maybe a little elated, maybe it’s all a little too real, that Ryan can’t say Brendon.

“But he talks about you.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s never talked about anyone like that.”

“Yeah,” Brendon says, and he’s starting to wonder where this is going, what the fuck’s gonna happen next.

“Susie Miller is a translator for the hearing-impaired. She gives lessons to a select few.”

Brendon doesn’t speak, nods a little, and his fingers, they brush the silk-soft petals of the daffodils in front of him.

“I’ll make a call,” Spencer finishes, and maybe, maybe a smile crawls its way across his face.

Brendon can’t tell, not with the way his heart pounds in his ears.

*

Brendon has discovered that he has an overactive sweat gland.

Well, maybe hasn’t discovered per se, he’s always assumed, what with the way he kinda sheds it by the bucket, but this is the third time that he’s ever honestly felt it.

Second time being when Ryan came over for their first date.

First time being when he was fourteen and lost his virginity to Roxanne Leper.

He’s not even kidding about the surname, y’know, just for the record.

They’re at some fancy French restaurant tonight, where the waiter gives them dirty looks over his notepad. A fancy restaurant that just makes them both uncomfortable.

They should’ve stuck with Pizza Hut.

Or maybe Subway.

“Do you want a drink or something?” Brendon asks, but that’s stupid, because Ryan has a wine-glass full of water in front of him already.

Ryan shrugs all the same, is leaning, melting into the table, into the menu that lays strewn. 

“Ryan,” Brendon starts, because he only came to this place for one reason, one fucking thing tonight. “Ryan…”

He puts a hand on the other boy’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” Ryan asks, and he looks up too quickly, with those pools of swimming chocolate. 

This is probably the climax, Brendon thinks, this is probably what everything else has been leading up to, this is probably the part with the drum roll and the fireworks and the never-ending fiery kiss. 

Brendon’s fingers shake as he does it, coz really, he doesn’t want to fuck this up. “Ryan,” he says, “Ryan.”

Ryan, he’s staring with big, dark eyes, and Brendon can feel his heart in his throat again, can feel it twist itself around his trachea.

Brendon, he does it before he can think twice. He signs it out, with quick and nimble fingers. I Love You, coz yeah, each word deserves a goddamn capital.

And Ryan, suddenly he looks so serious, so scared. His fingers shake, and he grasps at the stem of the wine glass in front of him, sips and wavers, and a sound escapes from the depths of his voice box.

“Brendon,” he whispers, and he really can’t pronounce it, struggles over the syllables, the shape of the word. 

He leans forward, pushes his chest across the surface of the table and, and suddenly they’re kissing.

And it’s nothing really; it’s chaste and it’s innocent, and neither of them are prepared to risk it, to part their lips and suddenly give this thing a whole new depth.

“I wouldn’t be here,” Ryan whispers, and he’s leant back again, not too far though, still a hair’s breadth away, each letter too long again, “if I didn’t love you too.”

“Good,” Brendon says, and his voice is deeper than he has ever remembered, and without further adieu, without cause or effect, he kisses him again.

Ryan, he still smells like marigolds and tiger lilies.


End file.
